


Steal a Kiss

by potentiality_26



Category: Raffles (TV 1977), Raffles - E. W. Hornung
Genre: Christmas, First Kiss, M/M, Mistletoe, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-20
Updated: 2019-12-20
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:54:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21875491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/potentiality_26/pseuds/potentiality_26
Summary: Bunny's mood had been dropping all the way back to the Albany, which was my fault.  It had snowed that day but the sky was clear for our walk, stars and moon glittering like diamonds and pearls.  He was as ever brightest of all, and I was too quiet, which meant that I was plotting something.  Which, in turn, my rabbit did not like.Raffles steals something unexpected at Christmas.
Relationships: Bunny Manders/A. J. Raffles
Comments: 14
Kudos: 52
Collections: The 100 Multifandom Challenge





	Steal a Kiss

**Author's Note:**

> Fills my 100fandoms table prompt #61 (steal).

The way the electric light hit Bunny’s face was an example- perhaps the best I’d ever seen- of fate's generally unsporting manner. His cheeks were pink, his color high from the chill and the cheer on the streets that night, and his hair shone brighter than gold. It wasn’t fair play- it wasn't fair play at all- to put that sort of thing in a man’s way day in and day out. It was a cosmic display of jewels, one marked with a sign that read, clear as anything, _this is not yours_.

Bunny's mood had been dropping all the way back to the Albany, which was my fault. It had snowed that day but the sky was clear for our walk, stars and moon glittering like diamonds and pearls. He was as ever brightest of all, and I was too quiet, which meant that I was plotting something. Which, in turn, my rabbit did not like. 

“Raffles,” he said slowly, sure enough, when we arrived in my rooms and I poured us a drink. “What are you up to?”

“Why should I be up to anything?” I kept my back to him, pouring away. 

“I think I can safely say I know you-”

“None better.”

“-And I know how you get when the rush is on you. When you’ve taken something, or you've thought how you might. I don’t know what you did or what you saw-” and here he sounded apologetic, as if he believed I would consider it a personal failing in him that he did not- “but I know there was something.”

I had a glass for him and a glass for me, and I drained mine without turning around. Oh, he knew me- as much as I let him, anyway. He had followed me into lawlessness, danger, disgrace. He would not follow me here. He could not imagine the things I wanted to do to him. “It’s nothing,” I said, refilling my glass. I finally made myself glance at him where he was perched on the edge of the couch. He looked annoyed. “There was something, but I’ve thought better of it.”

“That doesn’t sound like you.”

“No,” I admitted.

“Tell me about it.” 

For all he was no good at any sport he ever tried, Bunny was a sportsman at heart. He hadn’t any natural bent for crime, either- I knew that as I knew myself. The pangs of conscience and thrills of terror that kept most men honest were ever in his blood, and they poisoned him for even the most elegant of crimes. But that sporting heart of his was still there, right at the center of him, and even as the guilt and paranoia blossomed behind his eyes he looked eager too. He would grow to like it if I let him- to hear me plot out something I never actually intended to do. It would have the game of it, the challenge and display of skill that he did enjoy with none of what he didn’t. Lucky, then, that it wouldn’t happen again. Lucky that it wasn’t even happening now. 

I shrugged. “Bit of a two part operation,” I said. “Managed the first part before we left, but I knew the rest wouldn’t go half so well. Best leave it be.”

But of course he caught what I said about managing some of it- those rabbit ears were capable of missing all manner of obvious things, but every once in a while they still managed to pick up whatever I was keenest to hide. He sat forward, everything in his face- guilt, paranoia, eagerness- plain as anything. “So then you did take something.” Accusation appeared within that roiling mass of emotion. “Without me.”

I waved him off, such as I could, crossing to him with glasses in both hands. “It was the impulse of a moment, Bunny, and dead easy besides.”

“Still.” Eagerness reasserted itself. “What did you get?”

A recklessness- the same recklessness which made me do the thing to begin with- came upon me then. I spread my arms, hands still full, and said, “Inner jacket pocket.” 

He bit his lip and reached for me, fingers obligingly dipping inside my jacket. I should have tucked it nearer to me, if I had planned this. As it was, I let him root around a moment before I said, “On the left.” I could barely feel him anyway. He had delicate hands, truly. Could have a future as a pickpocket if he was brazen enough. But if he was brazen enough he wouldn’t really be my Bunny. He wouldn’t need me at all. 

He found the thing that did not belong with a grin and lifted it out, the grin melting into confusion when he saw what it was. “Mistletoe?” 

“There were big sprigs of it all over, do you remember?”

He nodded. “Not as well as you, I imagine. All the ladies tried to catch you underneath.” 

There was a whisper of envy when he said things like that, always, but he had not been unpopular tonight, whatever he claimed now. He was a better dancer than conversationalist, and several young ladies had figured that out. 

It was as good a role as ever I played- not to stand rapt and watch him, the light on his hair and in his eyes. The ladies that danced with him, and with me, were of course beautiful. Sometimes it seemed he didn’t know what to do with them. A good flirtation had all the best parts of cricket and burglary combined, necessitating skill and attention to detail for the return of a bell-like laugh and a glimmering smile, the touch of a gloved hand and, just maybe, the silken brush of lips. There was even the same rush of success, though not so dearly bought as with crime. And here I was usually happy to look and not touch- indeed in some cases I had no choice.

It was in fact not all the ladies but only three that secured me under the mistletoe that night. One was the glittering daughter of the host, given a respectful peck on the cheek under her father’s watchful eye. I whispered in her ear, made her laugh, and caught Bunny watching me, tripping nearly over his partner. A man who was all but her fiancée was there that night, frightfully jealous of my skill on the field and her admiration of it. She giggled about it to me, then pushed me off to seek other conquests as she soothed his pride. I would have rather stayed with her. She was all chestnut curls and flashing eyes, a worthy player in her own right. It was all part of the game, to use each other. In mutually pleasurable ways, one would hope. No one expected a lasting romance on a night like that. After we parted I looked back to where the mistletoe hung. It was entirely natural, after all, that I should want to fix the spot and that moment in my mind. 

I thought of how I would have loved to have Bunny under that mistletoe. He would think it a joke, a bit of fun, no more serious than those girls- no, even less serious, for he never seemed to understand that women didn’t always want a man to be serious with them, sometimes they wanted to enjoy a little dream that was all the sweeter because it was over- but I would have stolen something of more worth to me than any jewel. His kiss. The thought of it made me reckless. It was nothing at all to steal a bit of the mistletoe, for it was everywhere and hardly protected, but to actually use it would prove another thing. 

“What did you take it for?” he asked, and I was reckless again. 

“Hold it up and you’ll see.”

He held it up obediently above his head, even looking at it as if he thought some secret property of the plant might materialize at any moment. “What now?” he asked after a while.

“I believe you’re meant to kiss me.”

Bunny blinked but obeyed then too, leaning up and towards my cheek. At the last moment I turned my head and caught his mouth with mine. His lips were shocked and slack, but also soft and sweet and still there long moments after I was sure he would have jerked away if he was truly horrified. Surely he would have pushed me away, or said _something_ , if this was any sane world and he as innocent as I had imagined. But that ‘surely’ meant nothing in this world I rather doubted was the least bit sane. He might wait patiently for an explanation that couldn’t possibly come. He might suffer what made his skin crawl because I asked it of him. A better man would never ask. A smarter man would never let his impulses rule him in a situation like this. But I am not a good man and though I am, if I say so myself, a clever one he is capable of making me very stupid. Even if he did believe it was just a joke or a trick of some kind, it couldn’t be. For I lingered against him, frozen, past my own ability to laugh it off and long past his. 

His free hand alighted, gripping my shirtfront for a second before he finally drew back, and even then he was still close enough for me to feel his heat despite the chill that lingered on his lips from the air outside.

My eyes were shut, partly because I wasn’t sure I wanted to see his face, but mostly because that made it easier to absorb all of the sensations and lock them away somewhere safe. The taste of the brandy he had been drinking. The smell of evergreen and smoke. The smoothness of his lips, just slightly damp from where he always worried at them. The unsteady rhythm of his breath, right from the moment I kissed him. 

And still he did not push me away. His breath came labored against my mouth, and when I leaned toward him slow I thought he met me. I had known my man in him from the first, but in this I had doubted and for the first time I began to hope I had been wrong. That it was desire he trembled with as our lips met again. That there was hope in his pliancy as I set our glasses aside and pressed him back into the couch to kiss again. He made a whining sound that might have made me think better of it all, except that then he clenched his fist around my shirtfront once more, this time hauling me closer only to twine his arm around my shoulders, fiercely enough that I could hardly pull away at all. And he was kissing me back, lips parted, receptive, _mine_. I settled on top of him, not as gracefully as I might have liked, as much of my concentration as possible on him, on savoring him, and I leaned over him, lifting my hands to frame his face and drag my fingers though his soft hair.

When I finally drew back, just enough to press my forehead against his, all I could think to say was, “Forgive me.”

“No, no, no,” he whispered. I finally met his gaze and I had never seen his face so full- too full to read him as well as I often could- though there was fear in the way his words tumbled over each other, I was sure of that much. “No, don’t you dare.” I could feel the pressure, hear the soft crackle of the mistletoe being crushed against my back as he clung to me. His voice cracked too. “Don’t you say you’re sorry, or it was the mistletoe, or you don’t-”

I kissed him again, and he sank into me again as if he could do nothing else, and I did not stop until he must at least believe that I was hardly about to throw him over in a minute. That he thought so left me guiltier than any burglary, and twice as afraid. It may be ridiculous to anyone who has read a word he has written, but until I had him kissing me, had him begging me not to take it back, I fancied myself incapable of breaking his heart too badly. “I mean that I shouldn’t have done it like that. I did not think... I did not think you would wish me to, you see.”

He looked up at me from his place pressed back into the cushions of the couch. “Yes, I do see.” And as he said so, I saw a look of awe pass over his face. So he did see, then. He is no fool, my Bunny, and I should not let him think otherwise as often as I do. He saw that I thought to take for just a moment what would never be given me freely in a thousand years, and it awed him not just that I had been wrong, but also that though he had been mine for longer than I could almost remember I had thought he would never be _mine_. 

“And do you forgive me?”

“Always,” he replied, and his expression was wry but he smiled. “What now?” he asked once more.

And once more I said, “I believe you’re meant to kiss me.”

And he did, laughing and holding me tightly to him. That poor sprig of mistletoe ground into my hair. 

**Author's Note:**

> Come see me on [dreamwidth](https://potentiality-26.dreamwidth.org).


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